Tuesday, March 2, 2010

codeine induced

Internet, old buddy, old pal. How the hell are ya, you old bastard? Me? I'm still sick. But I did see a doctor today. Uh huh. I did. And so now I might be just a tad under the influence of codeine. Cough syrup. Yup. Great stuff, cough syrup.

But nevertheless, I am still able to recount two completely awesome events of the day.

My dad, awesome dad that he is, he is, drove me around today, to the doctor and to drop off my prescriptions. It's worth noting that my dad was a crazy driver until I started driving. And now he drives like an old man. So as he was driving 15 under the speed limit, making the driver behind us hate life, and then he made a left turn only halfway in the turn lane, I laughed at his old man driving skills. To which he replied, "when you ride with me, you ride with danger."

And that sent me into an endless laughing fit, which was not good because of the sick I mentioned earlier. You know, the coughing and wheezing. I mean, that's just the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard!

Then we went to pick up my prescriptions from the pharamacia only to be greeted by a line of no less than 57 people. Okay, so maybe it was more like 10 people. But that's still a long ass line. And at the end there isn't even a ride with fast cars or even animatronic characters. And why was this line so long, you ask? Oh I will tell you why. I will tell you why.

There was a very angry lady at one of the only two windows open holding up the line and berating every poor employee within a fifty mile radius. And even though there was a sign clearly asking other customers to respect patient privacy, I think she waived that right when she broadcast her extremely profane message from here to Cleveland. I'm pretty sure they could hear her in Japan. Therefore I have no hesitation in sharing this tale.

I really wanted to pull out my camera and record the whole thing, but I was afraid she was a biter. And I'd like to keep my hands thankyouverymuch. But seriously, this woman was utterly horrid. And I'm pretty sure she's either an addict or a drug dealer. In between shouts of, "DO YOUR FUCKING JOB" and "YOU'RE GONNA GET ME 4 PACKS OF MY PRESCRIPTION AND I'M GONNA PAY FOR 2," she also claimed that she was a pharmacist and that at her pharmacy they would never fuck up this much, that this happens to her ALL THE TIME.

Um, what now? Am I really the only person for whom alarm bells were sounding? If she's a pharmacist, why doesn't she go to her own pharmacy? And I doubt she is even a pharm tech, but if she is, I'd assume she's stealing from them or has multiple prescriptions there too. And what's worse is that after all that, the pharmacy gave in. Proves you can just yell loud enough and even potentially illegal behavior is juuuust fine.

Now I was raised by a first class prescription drug addict. So I've watched this behavior first hand. I've watched the begging, the threatening, the ultimatums. I've seen it and I'm telling y'all now, it sho ain't pretty. But this should be one of the most regulated industries and, in my opinion, it isn't. It's easy to con doctors out of scripts, or even steal script pads. It's easy to have multiple prescriptions at different pharmacies. And you can always con the pharmacist into thinking your bottle was a few pills short. Every month. I watched it happen.

In my opinion, you only get the benefit of the doubt once. Once. Then you don't get any more chances. And when I got to the window (finally!) at the pharmacy today (and the femme horrible was still there), the pharm tech said she's ALWAYS like this. They know her by name. Doesn't that seem problematic to anyone? Look, I don't want to get all Big Brother (from 1984, not the lame ass reality show), but there has to be more regulation here. It's too easy to get all the drugs you want.

Anyway, it was amusing. And disturbing. Two of my favorite things.

Aaaaaand I'm still a sicky lass. Send soup. But not codeine. I have enough of that.